I'm not sure this is a question more than a rant, but I'd love for y'all to talk about The Bicycle Casino for a second. This email is not to bash but to talk about the future off brick and mortar poker. I'm tilted right now because I'm reading an article in Cardplayer (a sad operative these days), about how awesome the CPPT is now that is is at The Bike.

Mo, the TD, has been running the Quantum reload tournaments which basically allows for a progressive buy-in structure. I'm sure you are aware of them. The idea being you can buy into a tournament on later days, or hours depending, for more than the original buy-in, but get more chips. In some cases, you can buy into the final day of the tourney while already in the money!! I feel this just changes the overall concept of fair competition - imagine marathon runners paying 4x more in entry fees to enter at the 16th mile?!?!?

It absolutely sucks for casual players because they are basically in a satellite for Day 2. I avoid them all but they are running about 60-80% of their good tournaments with this structure. Are these types of gimmicks going to continue throughout poker moving forward? It just feels like both live and online poker are at an all-time low as far as value.

What about asking for / submitting ideas to "help" the GPL succeed. They could either be serious or funny. For example, what would the GPL do for a coin toss, to see which team gets the Button first? What about instead of a coin toss they do a "Lodden Thinks"?

I'm thinking the GPL is going to need some help in order to be a success. So who better to ask then poker players?

I have started a job where i have to travel to it so have time to listen to the pokerkast twice a week. i like the music content and was going to say it would be nice to hear a whole song or a few intros but that seems to have already met an untimely death.

the two poker players as hosts is really starting to work well. the drops are now also improved dramatically from wha sometimes seemed a bit too often and a bit loud. i also liked t-chan reporting from the wsop berlin. i would of liked a more in depth report and i dont think he needed to have a deep run to do it.

personally i like the "human Interest" content like parking tickets, ice hockey, mma, and your son etc. i think the inclusion means the podkast is more organic and feels a lot more genuine.

the only slight annoyance i have is that some of the adverts have really annoying voices and i would love to see them redone.

There has been some noise lately pertaining to the bot issue on 888. First of all, 888 seems very indifferent to uncovering bots, and secondly, when we ask them what they do with the confiscated money from the closed accounts (once the regs have pointed out to them which accounts are bots), they refuse to disclose the outcome of the money.

Don't know if this issue interests you guys, but I just feel as this info needs to be put out there, especially after 888 management refuses to comment on the issue. Here is a thread on the bots in question :

(Originally was going to be an Email, but didn't want to make you read it on air)
Pokercast team,
Keep up the great work on the show. Only criticism is the one episode you did devoted to DFS. I like the occasional DFS update in my pokercast because I feel the two are related, but an entire show devoted to it was a bit much.

I was watching the 15 NOV episode of the John Oliver show enjoying it as usual, when he transitioned into a segment on DFS's recent "run ins" with the NY Attorney General. Now at first, I naively believed that this was going to be a rant on how stupid the Attorney General was since my opinions tend to align with John Oliver about 99% of the time. Well this was definitely a 1% where he and I disagree as he went on to rant on how DFS is gambling just like poker is gambling and both should be illegal.
I was watching with my wife who obviously started needling me on the topic since she always teases me that I'm going to gamble away the babies college fund on poker or DFS and I always tell her its not gambling its skill.

After the show I proceeded to go on a counter rant explaining that gambling is a game like craps and roulette where the odds are stacked against you, where as poker and DFS is a game of skill with no house edge. She wasn't buying my argument. And the more we went back and forth the more I felt like I was in the wrong. And I was

Defintion of Gamble from Merriman-Webster.com
a : to play a game for money or property
b : to bet on an uncertain outcome

By definition poker and DFS is gambling since there is no delineation between a game that can be beat and a game that cannot. By the same token a chess tournament with an entry fee is also gambling even though there is almost zero luck involved. On the other end of the spectrum, but still considered gambling would be a game like monopoly where while there is some skill, the dice roll is probably a much more decisive factor. I think Poker and DFS fall somewhere in between the Chess and monopoly game continuum as far as the chance vs skill factor since there are clear examples of people who achieve long term win rates(not sure the same is true of monopoly).

I think the online poker industry has for too long tried to play the "we are a game of skill card so we should be an exception to gambling laws" reasoning. It has fallen pretty much on deaf ears with no action (partly due to interest groups). Eventually in my back and forth with my wife on whether poker or dfs was gambling or not, eventually I gave up and said, "the real issue is that neither should be illegal but they are, and for that matter why is gambling illegal anyways" to which she completely agreed with. Which made me realize who cares whether its called gambling or not, most people are OK with gambling.

I live in Texas which has no "casinos" except for those completely rigged slot "game rooms" (i think of trailer park boys when I drive past them). However, there hundreds if not thousands of "underground" poker games that go on every day in the state. Additionally, people drive hours across the border to Oklahoma or Louisiana every weekend to play at legal casinos there (similar to what AC was for the east coast years ago). People in this state like to gamble, The most popular form of poker is called Texas ****ing Hold-em. How is it illegal to play texas hold-em in texas (private home games are allowed as long as there is no rake)? I find it hard to believe that if the PPA or pokerstars or someone (**** at some point I'll get around to it when my kid can wipe his own ass) were to go around and get a referendum on the ballot to legalize gambling or poker in this state, that it would not pass. Even if it failed because of some right/left winged political bs, it would at least bring the issue more attention.

If states will legalize marijuana and people will defend their right to own guns, I'm starting to think that the right to gamble is just as important to enough people, but the issue hasn't been presented in the right way. Most poker players are math people so we try to logically prove why poker should be legal. If anything, I think trying to get something done politically using logic is a terrible idea. Make it a " if we can't play poker the terrorists have won" issue. Or blame our inability to play poker on Obama, and that in of it self should drum up enough support to "legalize" poker.

I'll end my rant now.

Summary: Poker and DFS are gambling. The issue is that not all forms of gambling (online or live) should be legal. Poker should join DFS and fight this battle not from a logical standpoint, but from an emotional standpoint.

"Love the show and have been long time listener but was a bit disappointed for a single reason this past episode. You have Dani Stern on who makes it perfectly clear that he understands that Pokerstars as a company needs to do what it needs to do to be a successful company and that his main complaint is the false advertising for VIP benefits and the extremely short notice of the cuts being made. Then you have the perfect opportunity to speak with a Pokerstars rep and proceed to only talk about how Pokerstars is thinking long term blah blah throwing him soft balls when i was waiting for you to ask him about how quickly and hastily they made this announcement and how it was found out via the Russian PS sites leak for huge changes that will be instated Jan 1st! When were they planning to make it if it wasn't for this leak and why can't they honor what they promised players who worked their asses off for SN or SNE status? I was definitely bummed to not hear these questions asked.

Hey guys great show again this week. I Was away on a two-month trip and was pumped to get back to listening to the show. Got a quick question for Tchan - can you talk about your chest tattoo and why you got it? (was it mostly for fighting, poker or mix of both?) it`s pretty cool.

Also, could you guys discuss the situation with paying taxes on poker winnings in Canada? From the research I`ve done it would seem that you would only need to pay taxes if you are a professional, i.e. recreational players would not. But it does not seem all that clear whether that is defined by amount of time spent playing or relative $ gained playing as apposed to doing other lucrative activities/a job. Does anyone really pay taxes on live cash earnings that are almost impossible to monitor accurately?

AFC Bounemouth defying the odds once again by turning over the once mighty Manchester United.
The league this year is unfathomable.
Not to mention Leicester (pronounced Lester) still topping the table after giving Chelsea a lesson.

On the subject of pronouncing English towns, how would you pronounce Towcester?

Hey guys, was listening to a few episodes back where you had Lee Jones to discuss the chip situation in live tournaments during breaks. Wouldn't a simple solution be that the DEALER is required to picture each stack at the beginning of break before the stacks are touched. He/she could have a plastic tag that is included in the picture to keep track of when the image was taken during the tournament (ex: day 2 dinner break). This would provide a clear snap-shot of the chip stacks at the beginning of each break that could be used in resolving any issues that arrive. Seems like a cheap and potentially beneficial solution. wondering what you guys think.

The Department of Justice announced this week that it's suspending a controversial program that allows local police departments to keep a large portion of assets seized from citizens under federal law and funnel it into their own coffers....

TChan seemed to think the VIP changes would destroy the games 5/10 and above. How about, during the last show of 2015, he sets a line for the ratio of players in 5/10 games to players in 3/6 games that will be running during the first show of 2016, when they can check? Adam or Ross can pick a side.